Welcome to the Painting Challenge. Here you will find the fabulous, fevered work from miniature painters from around the world. While participants come from every colour, gender, age and nationality, they have at least three things in common: they love miniatures, enjoy a supportive community and they have all taken the Challenge.
This site features the current year's event along with the archives of past Challenges.
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Thursday, 17 March 2016

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is winding down and while I did beat my personal goal of 400 points, I'm trying to push through to an even 500. I've wracked up a few more points and I'm sitting at 477. Searching my lead pile I found a pack of Gripping Beast monks that I've been putting off painting for a while, but will certainly get me closer to my goal.

These weren't the most challenging figures to paint up, but they'll make good bystanders or objectives for a variety of dark ages or medieval battles.

These four monks should give me an additional 20 points, putting me at 497, just one Curtgeld short of 500!

These monks are just great John. As you say, they are such versatile figures and really could be used right into the 20th century. In that last pic they remind me of a scene from 'The Name of the Rose'. Good work and just one small push to go...

This post is eight auxiliary javelin men from Victrix. They are from the Republican Romans with Armor box. They'll be part of my EIR army for Hail Caesar.

This is a great box set. Lots of models, great sculpts, good variety, great value for money. I regret nothing.

The one guy in a wolf's head is there just in case I need a leader for some reason.

I will most likely break them up into two tiny units of skirmishers. They'll be an annoyance more than anything.

I three some more long grass on here, since I had three left from before and the bases are fairly empty. They are mounted on 60mm x 60mm bases from Litko in the US.

The facial features on these models are great; some of the best I've seen in large unit boxes.

These were fun to assemble and paint and will fill a critical role in my army.

Hmm, I don't thing I've seen Victrix ancients until now and I must say they look quite nice. You've done a great job on these chaps, Aaron. I quite like their facial detail and your groundwork is excellent. Well done and another 40 points towards your target!

Quickly following on from the Crusties "Nokia" armoured force and the shrimp-riders, here are some regular infantry to accompany them.

I painted these up in two batches of 16, just to make things a little easier on the old brain - it was still a bit painful doing the fiddly details on the rifles, but not as bad as repeating it 32 times!

When I was picking out stones/rocks with green I spotted something a little peculiar on one of the bases.

It was obviously an artifact from the basing gunk I used (a mix of fine pumice gel and large grain medium). Looks a bit like the face mask from a helmet, doesn't it? I decided to make it a feature on that base, so painted it blue. then washed and lightly drybrushed it.There are still a few more Crusties to come over the next couple of days.

It's great to see you continuing your riff with 'Strike Force Nokia', Tamsin. You've painted these ugly little dudes very well. Again, I like the orange elements on their shrimp forks, er, beam rifles. Actually, I think the blue bit found on one of their trippy bases might be a 'Coral'Antipersonnel Mine. :)

That's right folks, we're extending the deadline for the close of the Challenge to midnight Sunday.

So, buy another pound of coffee, get a case of Red Bull or whatever you need to keep your eyes open and your brushes moving - You now have an additional 24 hours to thrash out another entry in your bid for toy soldier immortality.

Its hard to believe its over. This Challenge has been a blast.
Thank you all for your support and encouragement! A special thanks to
Curt for playing ring master to this circus. Dave thanks so much for
wrangling me on a weekly (or some what weekly) basis. On
to this weeks entry. Fitting as a last entry is the last of the
Senegalese Triailleurs. I was able to add two more squads and a
supporting heavy Machine gun. All the figures are from Gripping Beast.

In
addtion to the Senegalese I was able to finish my Curtgeld in the form
of none other than Rudi Schweinsteiger "The Black Count" star of the
game we are running at Cold Wars this week. All credit for the name
goes to Sydney Roundwood. His amazing site has been a huge inspiration
for me as we took the plunge in to World War I. Here is a link to his
amazing site. Roundwood's World

In
our games,using the cards that Sidney designed, Rudi Schweinsteiger
became a huge favorite. I felt it was only fitting to give him his
staring role. In hindsight, I would be more
thoughtful in my planning for the Challenge. I would have like to
participate in the bonus themes but taking on the terrain board project
precluded any such fun. In other words I needed control my spastic
nature and stay focused!Thanks again this has been a great experience for me.

Eric, you've done a terrific job on this, your second installment of your Senegalese troops. I agree, Sidney's blog is great inspiration, but I think you've taken his muse and made the period your own with the work we've seen during the Challenge.

Rudi Schweinsteiger is brilliant! (Though I think we could use a couple more shots of him) Thank you so much! I have a suspicion he could be a great Pulp Adventure character as well (a scenario is percolating already...).

It was a pleasure having you with us this Challenge, Eric. I hope you join the wild ride the next time we set sail. Thanks again.

Nice work Fran! I've always liked the look of these wheeled LAVs. The camo is great and your addition of the aerials and stowage finish them off quite nicely (with a few extra points added for that). Well done!

These are two more characters for D&D. One is Bones and one is a GW Ranger of the North from their LotR line.

The Bones sculpt, on the left, is very soft. She has almost no facial features so I had to paint on her face. The figure on the right is a great sculpt, metal and very detailed. He's painted to match the terrain of the RPG he's a part of.

I looked through all of the Bones and couldn't find a Ranger that I liked as much as this one, so he took one for the team and will not be included in the LotR armies.

The lass in yellow is a mage. As she levels up I'll add some details to her robes.

Great work Aaron! I know the Bones figures can be a bit fiddly at times but many of their poses are excellent and I really like this magic user with her confident flat-handed spell-casting. Your colours are rich and vibrant as well, her yellow and green outfit is a great colour combo (and fitting for St Patrick's Day). :)

I see you have a few more entries coming up for us as you close in on your 1500 point goal. More on those soon.

As the Betteshanger Colliery was short of support here is a VBCW machinegun and crew. Not sure where I got these figures from but I would guess Sloppy Jalopy. That should bring the Coal miners of Kent up to full strength on the table-top.

Tomorrow I will have the finished last few of the socialists. But for now that is just my addition to the Very British Civil War Colliery Platoon which has been painted in the Challenge. One last post tomorrow and that is me done. DO NOT expect a point bomb! As I am just finishing things off before I start something new.

This is a great addition to your VBCW collection, Clint. Your miners will be very pleased with the extra firepower I'm sure. I love the gunners' helmets with their yellow-lensed goggles and their civilian jackets. I also like how you've done the basework for this project, with the bands of impressionistic base-terrain colour - it gives a very cool effect.

Well done Clint,I look forward to presenting your final post in the next day or so.